


Pinky Promises

by c4tr1n



Category: Primeval
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:34:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c4tr1n/pseuds/c4tr1n
Summary: Abby never finds the Anomaly Opening Device in the raptor's nest and it's five years until one opens in the exact spot as before, but this time things are different.I’ll get us home.Promise?Promise.
Relationships: Abby Maitland/Connor Temple
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t that he couldn’t believe his eyes, his eyes had never lied to him before so he had no reason to doubt them. It was just, he cursed the damn thing for appearing now, now. They had prayed for it to open five years ago, wished that they were at the beach instead of cowering at the top of a tree with no way home. He had promised her that they would get home together, in one piece, and live happily ever after. Or as happy as they could after everything.

Now, Connor stood in front of the dancing shards, the thing that had brought them together but led on to her demise. And he was the last one standing, his hand curled around the only part of her he had left, someone he’d made the same promises to and now they stood in front of the thing that possibly meant he could keep these ones.

“What is it, dad?” She asked, hair wild and brown just like her eyes.

“I think… I think it might be home.”

Connor pulled her up into his arms, her legs clamping onto his hips and her arms clasped around his neck just like he’d taught her to do if they needed to move, fast. A part of him didn’t want to leave, couldn’t. A part of him was here, millions of years away from home and he was supposed to just turn his back on her and leave?

“Do you not want to go home, daddy?” One of her thumbs stroked at his cheeks.

He had to.

“Yeah, sorry, of course. Come on, let’s go on an adventure, shall we?”

The cacophony of calls that they were so used to turned silent just for a second as they stepped through, the purest of calm, and then they were somewhere else entirely. Sounds that had been once familiar to his ears were as strange as the ones he’d heard during their first night in the canopy above their new – old – world those years ago.

There was shouting and engines running, he could hear people running and there was a static to the air that tickled at his ears. All of his senses decided to attack, from the loudness around him, and her, to the smells that surrounded them. The fumes.

“Woah, woah, woah. Hold your fire. I repeat, do not shoot!” Connor’s ears tuned to the loudest noise there was because that usually meant it was the nearest and anything that got too close was a threat.

He scanned the line of soldiers in black all aiming their weapons at him. And her. Big rifles, small pistols and some in between.

This was home. This is what they’d wanted to get back to?

There he was.

A face he hadn’t seen in five years, the only sign of home he needed to see to know that they were safe. Connor had done it, they’d done it.

He collapsed to his knees, still holding onto her. He didn’t even register the sound of his bone against concrete or feel the tears that suddenly reached his chin, following the curve and dribbling towards his chest. She did, though.

“Daddy, is this home? Are we home?”

“Yeah.”

“So why are you crying?”

Because even though they’d made it, he couldn’t shake the feeling of failure. There never was a promise he couldn’t keep, especially when it came to Abby. She could have everything, and anything and he would happily give it to her. Their pinkies became a binding contract, never broken.

I’ll come back. _Promise?_ Promise.

It’s safe. _Promise?_ Promise.

It’ll be okay. _Promise?_ Promise.

It’s cooked. _Promise?_ Promise.

I’ll get us home. _Promise?_ Promise. And that’s when she passed, her little finger curled in his. The us, not being him and her but him and _her_. The _her_ that had taken her from him, the _her_ that shattered his world into a million different pieces but knew how to fix it, too.

“Connor?” Becker’s voice was almost a breath. Connor wondered when his name was last spoken, if they were spoken about in _what-ifs_ and _maybes_. A brief part of a soldier’s life.

When the man fell to the floor in front of Connor, arms hesitant and mouth gaping not sure what to do or say, Connor thought that maybe he had never given up hope, either. That their promises to each other were all about staying alive and getting home because it was worth the struggle for the people who waited.

“And who’s this?” Becker asks, tucking her loose strands of dirty, tangled hair behind her mother’s ears.

“This… this is Fern.”

“Fern, eh?”

Connor thought he could see Becker’s eyes welling, but was finding it too hard to focus on one thing. He had been rewired to concentrate on everything and anything in the Cretaceous, to register the different sounds and evaluate the danger they might possess.

Fern had tucked her head into Connor’s shoulder by now, nestling her nose into his collarbone. He couldn’t begin to imagine what this was like for her, new sights and alien smells. Louder and smellier than before, and this was somehow safer?

“Abby?” Becker’s eyes travelled beyond Connor’s shoulder now, towards the pieces of yellow against the walls of grey, the portal between worlds. Between life and death.

Connor clenched his jaw, wondering if he had spoken about her in past tense before those they had left behind might have started. Who had lost hope first? He wasn’t even sure if he’d managed to shake his head but Becker quickly got to his feet, grabbing a foil blanket from one of the soldiers behind him and he thought maybe he did. He was so numb.

“Come on, let’s get you home, shall we?” Becker pulled the blanket across Connor’s back, Fern instantly grabbing onto it. It was familiar for her, only this one didn’t smell of Abby. Or mud. Or afterbirth.

“I thought we were home? Daddy?”

“We are, we are. This is home, well not here. But we are home.”

“Don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re safe with me.” Becker said.

“Pinky promise?” Fern pressed, looking up from the reflections of the foil.

“Of course.” Becker lifted a single finger, the smallest on his left hand. Connor caught a glimpse of silver as he did, a wedding band.

Fern met the soldier’s pinky with her own, not letting go of the blanket, and it was a deal, a silent agreement between two parties.

I’ll get us home. _Promise?_ Promise.

*


	2. Chapter 2

He had never seen someone so good at handling weapons just as good with kids. Then again, it was almost the same thing. You had to treat the two with respect in fear of hurting someone and they were both so very capable of causing damage. Almost irreparable suffering. Connor knew that. Only, one of them was capable of fixing broken things, oblivious to what they might have done.

Connor watched her through the glass of Lester’s office, smiling as Becker spun her in the Field Coordinator’s chair. Jess, he thinks. S­­­he had brushed Fern’s hair to free it of any tangles, knots and pieces of bark better than he’d ever managed with his fingers. It was Jess that, while Connor and Fern were being subjected to a disinfectant shower, had gone to buy her some clothes.

It was only now, when he looked at her in a skirt and matching t-shirt that he could see how poor his stitching had been. The clothes they’d taken off her were the last reminders of Abby, permanently erased along with his own battered rags.

 _Why on Earth would we need a sewing kit?_ Connor had asked as they rummaged through their bag, looking for something – anything – useful. Abby explained it would be to stitch broken slings or tears in uniform. She said that Becker had called it a Housewife once but learnt from his mistake quite quickly. He was thankful for it when Fern arrived, not that he knew what he was doing but thought she needed something to protect her from the elements.

When he watched her now, he barely recognised her. Connor could actually see the light freckles on her nose, little pinpricks, enough for each day she had been alive. The little specks no longer hidden by a dusting of mud. When he couldn’t bear to look at her, reminded only of her mum, her freckles were all he could see in the sky above as the constellations looked down at him. So beautiful it hurt.

“Temple? Are you listening to me?” Lester spoke, not angry as he remembered him.

Connor was back in the room suddenly.

“Yeah, sorry… I, uh, I am.”

“Look, Connor,” Lester leaned forward now, elbows on the table as his fingers fidgeted with his tie. “I’m not going to lie and say I understand what you’re going through. I don’t, no one does. I am truly very sorry about what happened to Abby, you have my deepest condolences but our work here has changed. You will always be welcome here and an offer will always be on the table with your name on it. No pressures, no strings attached. But, and I need you to listen very carefully, Fern comes first. Fern, then you, then us. Do you understand?”

There was an untidiness to Lester that Connor couldn’t remember existed before. His tie not as straight or square as it might once have been, his jacket hugging the back of his chair instead of being worn, and the parting in his greying hair slightly off.

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it.”

“We will help you through this. Whatever it takes.”

“Thank you.”

Connor could have sat in that office all day, melting into the leather chair and closing his eyes from the harsh lights. He would do anything to sleep for as long as they would let him, for as long as was possible.

“Oh, Connor! I had it seen to that your stuff was brought over from the old ARC. It’s all there when you’re ready. Becker will be able to take you there.”

“Thank you.”

Lester would usually clap his hands or fold his arms until he was left alone again, but he simply sat back in his chair and spun it around to look out towards Jess, Becker and Fern.

“She is beautiful, Connor.”

“Mmm. She doesn’t get that from me.” He scoffed, standing slowly as he adjusted to having new shoes on his feet.

It was all so strange, all of it. In the Cretaceous, it was almost as if time had stood still. Every day it had been the same, a mission of survival. Abby had been keeping count of the days, especially as soon as they’d figured out that she was pregnant. After that, the days and nights blurred together in an attempt to stay sane. The blues and blacks of the skies made no difference to him, he almost never slept and if he did, he felt worse for it.

Lester was looking at him now and Connor wondered how long he’d been standing there, his hand still against the back of the chair. He spent so much of his time in his head that he forgot things moved outside of it.

Until something pulled him away from his thoughts.

“Where – where is he?!” The shouts came from beyond the glass but it didn’t muffle Connor’s recognition. He left Lester’s office and found a face he thought he’d never see again.

“Danny!”

The man pulled him into a hug and smacked his arms across his back. Connor was slower to react but returned the embrace.

“Am I glad to see you. I can’t believe it.” Danny pulled away and looked towards the little girl who was now walking towards her dad. “And this… you must be Fern?”

Connor felt little tugs at the back of the fleece he’d been given to wear.

“Look, you’ve scared her!” Becker laughed.

“Yeah, a face only a mother could love, right?”

By the time they’d talked about everything, but not that much at all, it was dark outside when they left. Connor wasn’t trusted with a set of keys for one of the shiny new 4x4, and he was thankful for it. Fern had fallen asleep across his lap as she often did and he pulled her head towards his chest, hand cupping her other ear almost automatically to stop the noises of the world from disturbing her rest.

Jess was the type of person that could go on about something without needing to know people were listening, jumping from one topic to another without making her way back to finish what she’d started to say. He could hear Becker chipping in every so often, humming in agreement.

“Connor?”

Oh, there had been a question?

“Hmm? Sorry? Miles away.” Millions of years away.

“I was wondering if you’d like to come and stay at ours, until you find your feet? We have everything you could possibly need. I thought it might be better than whatever clinical atrocity Lester thinks is suitable. Honestly, we don’t mind.” Jess smiled as she glanced back towards him, her face as bright as her clothes.

Connor opened his mouth and closed it again. Dry, words stuck somewhere in between his breaths and gulps. He almost said yes but Becker’s wedding band caught his attention again as the orange street lights shone against the silver as they drove.

“Oh, that’s okay. Thank you.” Connor flashed a smile, he thought, the corners of his mouth only creasing slightly if he had managed to move them at all. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”

Becker hadn’t put up much of a fight but Connor spotted Jess tugging at the soldier’s arms as they shuffled awkwardly outside the flat, probably only seconds away from a kick to the shin if he didn’t succumb to her hints soon.

“Temple,” Becker sighed, but there was a smile on his face. “We honestly wouldn’t mind, if you wanted to. Tonight, tomorrow, whenever. If you change your mind.”

Connor thanked them for the offer, for holding the door open so he could get into the building, for pressing for the lift so he didn’t have to disturb Fern as they headed up towards their apartment. Thanked them for the food and supplies as they showed him around, for leaving their phone numbers in case he changed his mind, for helping them come home.

He was out of words, hungry but tired and his head almost felt like it wanted to burst. Fern was sleeping on the bed now, tucked under a heavy white quilt on a white bed against the white wall. Jess wasn’t wrong about this place but who was he to complain?

There were copious amounts of food, too much for him and Fern to eat their way through before it all started to grow fur or turn brown. It was a hard decision to make, but he went for strawberries.

He bit into the first one and his eyes were as watery as his mouth as it tasted the sweet sourness of one of his forgotten favourites. The seeds tickled his tongue, making his throat tighten as he tried to stop himself from heaving. He managed to swallow in the end, and it stayed down. For now. So, he ate another. And another. Until the punnet was empty and his stomach a little heavier.

As he placed the plastic on the counters, he caught a glimpse of his hands, the tips of his fingers red. The skin of the strawberries he’d missed clumped like clots at the creases and he was suddenly back in the Cretaceous and it was her blood on his hands, not fruit.

The water from the sink splashed across the counters and all over his clothes as he lost count of how many squirts of soap he’d managed to pump before the bottle slid with a slam on the draining board. It didn’t stop him from washing his hands until they were red from the rubbing instead of leftover strawberries.

His hands shook as he reached for the tap, trying to stop the water from spreading further across the worktops as his clothes were already too wet to salvage. He got it closed.

Connor fell to his knees, slower than he had done before, his knees sliding against the doors of the clean but dripping cabinets. His hands were curled around the lip of the worktop, his tips of his fingers could stroke the cold metal of the sink as he pushed his head against the wood of the door.

At some point in the middle of it all, he had sat down as his body drifted to a sleep. He woke up damp from bad dreams, cold sweats and the mess of the sink.

“Dad! Daddy?!”

“I’m coming. Hold on, I’ll be there.”

Connor pushed himself up to his feet, the tiles still wet from the night before. As he stepped towards the cries his leg slipped from beneath him and he fell forward with the force of the run he hadn’t quite managed.

His head met the worktop, pain throbbing through his eyebrow and working back towards his crown. He managed to numb it slightly by clenching his jaw, ignoring it as much as he could for now as Fern still cried from the bedroom.

“Dad’s coming.”

And he did get there, crawled halfway until his knees met carpet and the pounding in his head subdued. She had pushed herself against the headboard, arms hugging her knees.

“I’m here, look.” Connor pulled Fern into his arms, and she was wet too. He glanced towards the bed to see a puddle from the night before. “It’s okay, Fi.”

“I didn’t know where you were.”

The buzzer rang somewhere in between stripping the bed and trying to calm Fern down enough to explain that the shower was safe. It was Jess who spoke.

“Morning you two, just wanted to check in.”

“I told her not to, mate.” Becker chipped in, sounding a little further away than Jess.

“It’s fine. Come up.”

*

“I just can’t imagine it, B.” Becker held his breath for a moment, trying to hold back from finishing his name for her. “He doesn’t seem at all how you described him.”

“He has just been stuck in the Cretaceous for five years.” They had decided to take the stairs, and he started to question if it might have been quicker to wait for the lift to pick them up.

“Poor thing, just so awful. Isn’t it? I don’t know what I’d do in that situation. And poor Fern.”

“They’re home now, so we just have to look after them both.” For a second, he forgot he wasn’t talking about Connor and Abby.

They reached the door quicker than he thought they might but he always forgot Jess was a fast walker, even in her colour-pop heels. Becker had no doubt that she could probably even beat most of his team at their fitness tests if it wasn’t for her hate of combat boots and the monochromatic uniform. Unless he was wearing them, of course.

Jess knocked loudly and quickly in a sing-song rhythm that usually received a reply from the person on the other side of the door. Connor didn’t finish the tune but swung the door open as he rushed around holding towels in his hands in the same clothes he’d been given the day before.

The flat was as messy as he was, the fresh bedding damp with panic and bad dreams crumpled on the floor next to the washing machine, a punnet full of leaves on the counter next to sains of red and there was water everywhere.

“It’s safe, Fern.” Connor’s voice came from the bathroom softened by the shower. “Fi, you need to get in and get washed. This is how they do it here.”

“I don’t like it!”

“Tough!”

Jess turned to look at Becker and she didn’t have to say a single word to know what he needed to do. She headed towards the sound of running water while he looked around, trying to figure out which mess to tackle first.

Laundry.

He’d managed to set the machine to a quick wash and make a start on the counters when Connor joined him in the kitchen.

“Mate, you don’t have to do that. I had it –”

“All under control?” Becker questioned emptying the tops of the strawberries into the food waste. When he pulled back towards the counters, he noticed a shine around Connor’s eye that he couldn’t remember from the day before. 

“Yeah.”

“Looked like it, too.” He smiled, but it wasn’t returned. It would have been, once. “Look, Connor… Jack’s coming in today, he doesn’t know yet. About Abby.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I can talk to him, I’m sure –”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.” Connor was mopping up the water on the floor with kitchen towels now.

“Don’t let Jess see you use those, apparently they are not for cleaning floors.”

“Mmm, Abby would say the same.” The man smiled now, but the happiness didn’t reach his eyes. It barely touched his cheek, dimples hardly showing.

Becker went to rinse the cloth he was using when he stopped and turned to face Connor, still leaning towards the floor but pausing when he felt the soldier’s eyes on him.

“There’s something you need to know about him, about Jack.”


End file.
